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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24788614">Things With Wings</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/mific/pseuds/mific'>mific</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Books of the Raksura - Martha Wells, Good Omens (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Action/Adventure, Alpha Centauri (Good Omens), Crossover, Established Relationship, Honeymoon, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 10:06:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,503</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24788614</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/mific/pseuds/mific</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Moon and Stone are on a mission to Bithar to stop the Fell from devastating the city, and Aziraphale and Crowley are honeymooning. They meet... in a bar.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Moon &amp; Stone (Books of the Raksura)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>A Ficathon Goes Into A Bar</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Things With Wings</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Created for the 2020 Into-a-Bar crossover challenge. I'm hoping a few people might know both fandoms!  If you need a reminder about the Raksura, try <a href="https://www.marthawells.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page">here</a> or <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9461562-the-cloud-roads">here</a>.  In this story, I'm assuming Aziraphale and Crowley can angelically make themselves understood in other spoken languages. Hey, if the Stargates can do it, I'm sure angels can! :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Moon was at the tavern in Bithar City where he'd agreed to meet Stone. They were here alone for now, acting as advance scouts to check for Fell while the warriors and mentors in their party travelled at a slower pace—the two mentors needed to be carried. Jade had insisted they bring a healer and Glade was young but he already had a reputation for skill in the healing arts. Prism, the second mentor, had read all the arbora could find about the Bitharians in the colony's oldest records. Her knowledge of this exotic north-eastern people might prove invaluable.</p><p>There'd been rumours of Fell raiders heading for this region so Pearl had decided to send a party to gather information and do what they could to help the Bitharians. Jade had recently clutched and was still recovering her strength. She'd wanted to accompany them nonetheless, but Pearl had overruled her. Moon should have stayed with the clutch, but he hadn't been outside Indigo Cloud territory for almost a turn and Jade knew how restless that made him so she'd reluctantly agreed to him accompanying Stone. Pearl hated travelling and without a queen in the party it was safer to have two consorts.</p><p>Moon took another small sip of his ale and eyed the groundlings frequenting the tavern. There were several races present—a trading party sitting together that he recognised as Hadraats from their pink skin and the wattles under their chins, and several dark blue skinned folk he thought were Sericans, although this was farther north than their usual eastern range. In one corner were a family group of Iskanieri nomads cloaked in dark green, but most numerous were a people he'd seen nowhere else, the Bitharians. They were short and stocky with large round eyes, scaled lilac skin and white hair dressed in a multitude of braids. Moon had just decided that the number and intricacy of the braids was a mark of status when a voice spoke in his ear.</p><p>"They're a motley, lot, huh?"</p><p>Moon tensed and turned cautiously to find a groundling had joined him at the serving counter. Or… was he? There was something odd about him and Moon was getting hints of… was that skyling? He looked like no race Moon had ever seen and his clothes were odd, dark in colour, with narrow, tight-fitting pants, a stiff black jacket and a pale shirt under it with a strange peaked arrangement around the neck, held together by a dark, knotted strip of fabric. The skin of his face and hands was pale and lacked scales but unlike the Sipar he had dark, reddish hair. He also wore circular eye-covers of black glass. It was a wonder he could see anything through them at all inside the ill-lit tavern, but perhaps his species had a different mechanism for sight.</p><p>Moon changed his stance to ease back out of dagger range. You couldn't be too careful with unknown groundlings. "No more so than in any tavern," he said.</p><p>The man sighed. "Yeah, well at least the ale's good. Haven't had a drop like this since, oh, the time of Good Queen Bess."</p><p>Moon had never heard of such a queen, and it wasn't a Raksuran name. Perhaps his companion meant a groundling empire with the notional royal lineages Moon found it hard to take seriously, unlike the aeriat queens of the Raksura, born to rule in fang, spine and claw. As he had been born to be a consort, although he hadn't known that until Stone found him. Moon exhaled and calmed himself. It had taken him long enough to understand he was Raksuran, and what that meant; he could be charitable to a groundling.</p><p>"You're not… from here?" Moon asked. He was a poor conversationalist after many years hiding his true nature, living among groundlings but unable to trust them. Fully shifted into aeriat form he looked too like a Fell ruler with his wings, fangs, long tail and clawed limbs, and more than once he'd narrowly escaped being mobbed and killed. Stone'd had to save him from the Cordans after they discovered he could change form and drugged him with Fell poison, a very close shave.</p><p>"Nah, just honeymooning. We always did say we'd visit Alpha Centauri when we could, and now Armageddon's been averted… well, it seemed like the time. This world's turned out to be unexpectedly civilised. Mostly the solar system's been lava, or ice worlds, or toxic gas—gorgeous scenery, as Aziraphale reminds me, but nowhere to get a decent cup of coffee." He lifted his beaker of ale as Moon frowned, puzzling over his words. "Not that you've got coffee here, but the wine's not bad and this ale's very tasty."</p><p>Much of that had gone right over Moon's head. Honeymooning? Was this creature a night forager? Moon had never heard of a land called Alpha Centauri in the Three Worlds, nor of any race with that name. The groundling seemed amiable enough, though.</p><p>"I'm Moon." He hoped the strange person would not ask where he was from—he was in groundling form so could pass well enough. Prism had not been able to tell if the Bitharians knew of the Fell, but if they did, shifting to his Raksuran form would lead to panic, and guards, and the usual unpleasantness.</p><p>"Charmed, I'm sure," drawled his companion, extending a hand in what seemed to be a greeting gesture. Moon took the proffered hand, unsure what to do, then squeezed it in careful mimicry. Even in groundling form he was stronger than most, and this person was fine-boned and slender. "Call me Crowley," the groundling said with a lazy grin, then he brightened, waving at someone behind Moon's shoulder. "Aziraphale! Over here!"</p><p>Moon turned to see another groundling, shorter and stockier then Crowley and with pale curling hair and odd pinkish clothes, making his way across the tavern.</p><p>"<em>Do</em> excuse me," Moon heard him say to a table of Sericans as he squeezed past, sucking in his belly while smiling over at Crowley all the while. He extricated himself and hurried over. "Crowley! You won't <em>believe</em> what I found in that shop with the scrolls. Books! They have books!"</p><p>"Fancy that," Crowley said, eyeing his friend with wry fondness. "And you can read them?"</p><p>The plump groundling waved his hands. "Well, not as such, but that's the beauty of it! A whole new language, Crowley! Just think!" He paused suddenly, turning to Moon. "Oh I'm <em>so</em> sorry, how rude of me to barge in like that. Books are rather a passion of mine, you see." He also extended a hand, and Moon took it and squeezed, now more familiar with the ritual. "Aziraphale, at your service."</p><p>"Pleased to meet you. I'm Moon."</p><p>"What a lovely name," Aziraphale said, beaming, and Crowley rolled his eyes. Moon suppressed a smile. They were both very strange and there, again, from the pink-clad one, a strong hint of skyling. Could they be shapeshifters too? He knew only of the Raksura and the Fell, and the Forerunners.</p><p>He was still puzzling over that skyling impression when Stone appeared, stepping out of the shadows. He ignored the groundlings and jerked his head commandingly at the tavern's door.</p><p>"Oh, is this a friend of yours, Moon?" asked Aziraphale, beaming at Stone, then at Moon. Stone made no response and Crowley frowned.</p><p>"No time," Stone growled, glaring at Moon. "I picked up fresh Fell-scent."</p><p>"Fell what?" Crowley asked sharply.</p><p>"Fell as in fell beings?" added Aziraphale anxiously, looking between Moon and Stone.</p><p>Moon felt a chill in his gut. It was as they'd feared, the groundlings in Bithar didn't know what the Fell were and would be easy prey for a ruler to manipulate. "This is Stone, my... line grandfather," Moon said. He looked at Crowley and Aziraphale. "You haven't heard of the Fell?" Stone blew out an impatient breath.</p><p>Aziraphale tapped his chin. "Well, there are fell creatures, like, oh, werewolves, or vampires. But that's back on Earth. I hadn't realised they might be here as well."</p><p>"What sort of fell beings?" Crowley asked, and Moon thought for a moment he'd seen a flash of red behind those eye-covers.</p><p>"<em>The</em> Fell. Shapeshifting predators who prey on other races," Moon said. He'd forgotten these two weren't from Bithar, but he couldn't leave them here without any warning and just hope he and Stone could deal with the threat.</p><p>"Oh dear," Aziraphale said, looking distressed. "How very nasty."</p><p>"How do they… operate?" Crowley asked, and Moon was startled to see something like a raptor in his hooded gaze.</p><p>"They rip their victims apart and devour them," Stone said curtly, fed up with the discussion. "Moon, come on!"</p><p>Moon set his ale down but turned to Aziraphale, the most defenceless groundling he'd ever met. Books! He was like an ageing mentor who'd become too reliant on creature comforts. "I have to go. Stone and me, we have to stop it."</p><p>Aziraphale bit his lip. "But you're just a boy!" He turned to Crowley. "We must help, if these are fell beings. I don't suppose it's <em>your</em> lot?"</p><p>Crowely looked incredulous. "In Alpha <em>Centauri</em>?"</p><p>"Well, <em>we're</em> here!" Aziraphale protested, throwing up his hands.</p><p>"Please," Moon said quickly. "There's nothing you can do. You have to find a safe place and hide. Stone and I have… weapons, but we can't use them here. We need to find the Fell."</p><p>"Well, <em>that's</em> bullshit," Crowley sneered. "Don't lie to me, boy, you can't cheat a cheater."</p><p>Stone stepped forward, menacing Crowley. Even in groundling form he dwarfed everyone around him. "Stay and find cover. You don't know what you're dealing with." He looked at Moon. "It's a ruler. It's controlling the guard captain."</p><p>"No major kethel or dacti yet?"</p><p>Stone shook his head. "Not that I sensed. We need to kill it before it calls them in."</p><p>"Oh, wait now, we can't have killing," Aziraphale protested. "A ruler, you said? A member of the royal family here?"</p><p>Stone growled and grabbed Moon's arm. Moon turned back as Stone pulled him towards the door, shaking his head. "An impostor. It controls their minds then calls in the Fell flight to destroy the city. We have to stop it. Hide!"</p><p>"How will you–" Aziraphale began urgently, but Moon was outside the tavern by then and couldn't answer, running up the alley after Stone towards the guard tower.</p><p>Stone halted at the tower's base and craned his head back, staring up. "The ruler's on the fourth floor, the captain's quarters. The lower floors are full of guards and they’ll follow his orders."</p><p>"And he's under Fell influence," Moon said grimly, also staring up. "We'll have to risk it. This needs to be fast." He shot Stone a glance. You'll never fit through the window." In aeriat form, Moon meant. Stone was old and Raksuran consorts got larger and stronger as they aged. In his winged form he had no chance of getting through the fourth floor window even after breaking the glass. "I'll go first and fling the ruler through it, then follow him out."</p><p>Stone bared his teeth in frustration. He could shift back to groundling form to get inside, but then he'd be trapped and powerless against the ruler when it shifted. As it inevitably would. The tower levels did not look high-ceilinged so even Moon would have little room to move in his Raksuran form.</p><p>Stone nodded and they both shifted, launching themselves into the sky. It was risky to shift in a city whose inhabitants might know of the Fell but not the Raksura, so they wouldn't be able to land here again. Also, the guards would fight against them and Moon didn't want to kill innocent groundlings just because their captain had fallen under Fell influence. The only solution was to kill the ruler swiftly to release the captain, then to escape.</p><p>Moon's spines stood erect as he reached the captain's window and he flipped mid-air, flaring his wings to brake, and kicked it in with his clawed, thick-scaled feet. He spun, pulled in his wings and tail and dived in through the empty frame, rolling to his feet. A solidly-built man with iron grey hair in a uniform Moon had seen on the Bitharian guards had leapt to his feet and was shouting for back-up. Moon ignored him, grabbing the handsome, pale-skinned young man with long black hair who'd been leaning over a map on the captain's desk. A male ruler, then. Moon hauled him with all his Raksuran strength to the empty window-frame and flung him through.</p><p>The ruler screamed in rage, shifting into Fell form just as he cleared the window, black scales and rigid crest gleaming in the sunlight as his wings snapped out. Moon dove after him, extending his wings in turn and slashing at the ruler with razor claws, but missing. The light was occluded by a great dark shape and Stone plummeted onto the ruler, fangs bared. Moon barely managed to twist aside but the ruler somehow eeled away and Stone's talon ripped a rent in his wing but did no real damage. Moon snarled and flew after the fleeing ruler. Every second he remained alive gave him time to communicate with his Fell kin about the presence of Raksura.</p><p>Stone and Moon raced after the ruler, swooping through the sky as groundlings below screamed and wailed, running for cover with screams of <em>Fell! Fell!</em>  It was just as Moon had feared—they knew of the Fell but couldn't tell them apart from Raksura.</p><p>Moon recognised the tavern below them, and saw on the roof a dark form, pale face staring up, a pink-clad figure beside him. Aziraphale and Crowley, the idiots! They should be inside hiding, but he had no time to yell a warning. Then Aziraphale grew great, white-feathered wings and leapt into the air. Somehow, he was brandishing a flaming sword as he sped towards the Fell ruler, still in his ridiculous pink outfit.</p><p>The ruler tried to jink around him but he was faltering, clutching his head, his wings moving erratically. Stone dove on him, disembowelling the ruler with his hind claws, just as Aziraphale sliced the thing's head off with the sword. The body crashed down into a side street but the head fell down to the tavern's roof, bounced, and would have ricocheted off into the alley below, but Crowley leaped and stretched improbably, catching it in one hand. Then he sprouted huge black wings and rose up to meet them, wrinkling his nose in distaste as he held the ruler's black-dripping head by its hair, well away from his clothing. "Caught on the fly," he said smugly. "Reminds me of my cricketing days."</p><p>"Your days of <em>cheating</em> at cricket, you mean," Aziraphale replied tartly, but his eyes twinkled as he hovered in place with small fluttering wing-beats. Crowley grinned, unconcerned.</p><p>Moon and Stone circled the other two, stunned and perplexed. Shapeshifters and skylings both? Moon had never heard of any such species, and from his expression, nor had Stone.</p><p>"What <em>are</em> you?" Moon gasped, then recollected himself. "No, explain later. We have to destroy the head. It can communicate with other rulers and call them here."</p><p>Crowley turned, glaring fiercely at the severed head like a bird of prey as he hovered. "Oh, is <em>that</em> what it was trying to do. I picked up something from it just after it flew out that window. I've been blocking it."</p><p>Aziraphale sighed, sagging a little then flapping his wings harder to regain height. "Crowley, my dear, you promised me you wouldn't use the mind-whammy again."</p><p>Crowley pouted. "But it was a fell beast!" he protested.</p><p>"You stopped it communicating with other Fell?" Stone asked urgently as he circled.</p><p>"Yes, yes," Crowley said. "It's still trying, though. Aziraphale, will you do the honours?"</p><p>"Certainly, dear boy," Aziraphale said, and impaled the head on his burning sword. It burst into flames and was incinerated in an instant. "Well, that proves it was a creature of darkness," Aziraphale said to Moon as he swooped past. "The bad ones always explode like that."</p><p>"I, um, we usually bury the heads, to stop them calling their flight," Moon said. "But that works as well," he added hastily. Aziraphale and Crowley beamed.</p><p>"Delighted to have been of service," Aziraphale said.</p><p>"Yeah, nice bit of action. I was in danger of getting bored," Crowley added, wiping his hands on his jacket. He cocked his head at Moon and Stone then down at the city where people were peeping fearfully out of buildings up at them, guards running and shouting. The ruler's headless corpse was obscured by a small crowd of gawkers. "I take it we shouldn't just head back to the tavern? I could do with another pint."</p><p>Stone shook his head. His mane of spines and frills had subsided now the danger was past, but he still looked fearsome as he glided, tail lashing. "They won't realise we're Raksura and not dangerous like the Fell. They'd kill us. You… they won't have any idea what you are but they'd kill you as well, as our allies."</p><p>"Ah, pity," Crowley said. "I'm parched and I'm sure Aziraphale could do with some dinner."</p><p>"We can fly to the next town and change in the forest, then make our way back in groundling form," Moon said. He frowned. "Although your shifted form's very similar, so I think they'd recognise you."</p><p>"Ooh," Aziraphale said gleefully. "Disguises! I do love dressing up!"</p><p>At the next town Stone made them hide in the trees while he purchased new clothing for them and headcloths to cover their unusual hair.</p><p>"It's just like Galilee again," Aziraphale said, delighted, wrapping his headcloth expertly to conceal his pale curls. He was dressed in sandals and a long blue robe, but Crowley had insisted on black again, which was luckily common hereabouts. His headcloth was deep red.</p><p>Moon squinted at them both. "Those eye-covers have to go," he told Crowley. "They're much too recognisable."</p><p>Crowley winced. "Well, but…" he said, and took them off. His eyes were golden with vertically slitted pupils.</p><p>"Oh, you have Telethi blood?" Moon asked. Telethi had eyes just like that. "It's not that uncommon—no one will notice your eyes."</p><p>"That's a nice change," Crowley said, vanishing the eye-covers into a pocket of his robe. "But hey, I've been meaning to ask. Why do we need to go back to the city? I mean, other than for the ale and wine, which I'm sure is vastly better at the city taverns than out here in the boondocks."</p><p>Stone stood. "The Fell are still coming," he said. "That ruler was a scout, to gather information and control the guard captain to stop them resisting."</p><p>"You kept it from passing on vital information," Moon explained. "But the Fell flight will still come. They're arrogant, and even if they guess the ruler was killed they'll think they can still take the city. We have reinforcements arriving soon, but we'll be outnumbered."</p><p>"Then we shall most definitely stay and help," Aziraphale said decisively.</p><p>"Some honeymoon!" Crowley said, rolling his slitted amber eyes.</p><p>"Oh be quiet, you love smiting!" Aziraphale retorted, smiling fondly at him. "And anyway, I have to get someone to translate those books for me before we go."</p><p>"Stone can help with that," Moon said hurriedly. His reading was still a little slow but Stone had travelled widely and might know Bitharian.</p><p>"After we kill the Fell," Stone growled, and strode off down the road towards Bithar.</p><p>"Do we have to walk <em>all</em> the way?" Aziraphale whispered to Moon piteously, trudging after him. "It's never been my favourite occupation."</p><p>"Just until we're shielded by the forest again," Moon reassured him. "Then we can fly to the outskirts of the city and change to groundling form again.</p><p>"Oh good." Aziraphale rubbed his hands together. "It's nice to do a bit of flying again and I am rather keen to get some dinner before too long."</p><p>"What did you do with your sword?" Moon asked, suddenly remembering he hadn't seen it since they'd left the city.</p><p>"Oh, it's ineffable," Aziraphale said. Moon shot him a puzzled look. "Magic," Aziraphale clarified. "I can call it back when I need it. Like the wings and Crowley's mental powers." He elbowed Crowley. "Which he's never going to use on mortals again. I mean groundlings."</p><p>"No, dear, just on the Fell," Crowley agreed with a long-suffering air.</p><p>Moon slipped back to cover the rear of their party as they made their way deeper into the forest. He was feeling a lot more optimistic. Stone was worth several Raksura by himself so with him, Moon, the other warriors and these two foreign shapeshifters who were also powerful magicians, they had a fighting chance against the Fell.</p><p>Ahead of him, Aziraphale reached out to Crowley and they walked on, hand in hand.</p><p> </p><p>the end</p>
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